AIDS treatment in Africa
Meanwhile, the agonising effort to bring antiretroviral drugs to Africa, where more than two-thirds of the people with HIV/AIDS live, is now bearing fruit.
At the end of 2006, more than two million people were getting the vital pills - a 54 per cent increase over the previous year, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria says the number of people for whom it is paying for ARV drugs has doubled in the past year to 1.4 million.
James Shelton from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has written a piece for the medical journal The Lancet, to appear on Saturday.
"Despite substantial progress against AIDS worldwide, we are still losing ground," he wrote.
He says treatment is still only available to about 10 per cent of those in need, while in developing countries, "the number of new infections continues to dwarf the numbers who start antiretroviral therapy in developing countries".
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